Recognizing Real Life
Sunday School Lesson for
September 1, 2002
F.
F. Bruce. The Gospel and the Epistles of
John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
D.
A. Carson. The Gospel According to John.
Leicester: Apollos, 1991.
William
Hendriksen. The Gospel of John. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1954.
Andreas
Kostenberger. Encountering John: The
Gospel in Historical, Literary, and
Theological Perspective. Grand Rapids: Baker,
1999.
R.
C. H. Lenski. The Interpretation of St.
John’s Gospel. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1943.
A.W.
Pink. Exposition of the Gospel of John.
Vol. 1. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1945.
Herman
Ridderbos. The Gospel of John: A
Theological Commentary. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1997.
B.
F. Westcott. The Gospel According to St.
John. London: James Clarke and Co. 1958.
The Word
and God
(1:1-5)
The Gospel of John begins with an announcement concerning the “Word.” As we shall see, this special designation employed by the Apostle
is synonymous with the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. This term (logos) serves to reveal specific truths concerning the nature and
significance of His person and ministry, most notably, that He is the full and
final revelation of God to men. That
is, as words reveal the mind and will of the one speaking, Christ, as the
divine “Word,” fully reveals to men
the will, mind, purposes, and even the very presence of God. In addition, we note that in the Old
Testament words are seen as vehicles of power, authority, judgment, healing,
and even destruction (Ps. 33:6; Is. 7:3; 38:4 for instance). For the ancient
Hebrews, Yahweh’s Word indicated “God in action, especially in creation,
revelation and deliverance” [Bruce, 29]. Against
this Old Testament background, then, John describes Jesus as the One who is the
embodiment of the divine presence. In
these two verses the “Word” is
depicted as having three characteristics:
John 8:58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham
was born, I am."
Col 1:17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
·
Two: The Word has enjoyed eternal
fellowship with the Father (v.1b)- John declares that “the Word was with God” meaning that
Christ experienced the “closest possible fellowship with the Father, and that
He took supreme delight in this communion” (Hendriksen, 70). The Greek phrase that John used here can literally be translated
“face-to-face with God.” Thus, Christ had perfect fellowship with His Father in
eternity past. Note the following:
John 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
John 17:5 "And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the
glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”
John 17:24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be
with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast
given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world.”
·
Three: The Word was fully divine (v. 1c)- John states
emphatically, “the Word was God” (more literally, “God was
the Word”). In other words, Christ has
always been and will always be divine.
Thus, He was fully divine at His birth (He did not become the Son of
God), and He was fully divine at His death and resurrection (He did not cease
being the Son of God). Note how this is
emphatically stated elsewhere:
Phil 2:6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality
with God a thing to be grasped,
Col 1:15 And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all
creation.
Col 2:9 For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form,
The deity of the Word is
again expressed in this verse with the declaration that, “Through Him all things were made.”
That is, Christ was the divine Agent of creation. He is responsible for
the existence of the creation and for its preservation until now. Note that the Apostle repeats this truth
from the negative side with the phrase, “without
him nothing was made that has been made.”
This fact confirms for John’s audience that Christ was not a
creature. He was and is the Creator
who, according to Hebrews, “upholds all
things by the word of His power” (1:3).
Note once again the clear testimony of Scripture concerning Christ’s
deity and creative power:
Col 1:15-19 And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all
creation. {16} For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on
earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or
authorities-- all things have been created by Him and for Him. {17} And He is
before all things, and in Him all things hold together. {18} He is also head of
the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so
that He Himself might come to have first place in everything. {19} For it was
the Father's good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him,
Heb 1:1-3 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many
portions and in many ways, {2} in these last days has spoken to us in His Son,
whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. {3}
And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature,
and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification
of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high;
Finally, John asserts the
full divinity of the Word with yet another symbol or metaphor. Here, he refers to Christ as the “light of men.” This statement needs to be understood with
1 John 1:5 in view. There we read that
“God is light, and in Him there is no
darkness at all.” As A. W. Pink
notes, “The conclusion, then, is irresistible, and the proof complete and
final, that the Lord Jesus is none other than God, the second Person of the
Holy Trinity” [25]. In addition, John declares that Christ, the
light, “shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” In other words, the moral and spiritual
darkness in which men reside (and which resides in their hearts) never can
apprehend or accept the light of Christ.
By nature all human beings “love darkness because their deeds are evil
(3:19), and when the light does put in an appearance, they hate it, because
they do not want their deeds to be exposed” [Carson, 120-21]. Thus, “nothing short of a
miracle of saving grace can ever bring one out of darkness into God’s marvelous
light” [Pink, 26].
A Witness Sent From God (1:6-8)
Having established the
eternality of the Word, John now explains the work and ministry of John the
Baptist who paved the way for the public manifestation of the Messiah. The man, “John” was “sent from God”
in the same way that other key servants (namely, Moses, Ex. 3:10-15, and the
prophets, Is. 6:8) were raised up and commissioned by the Lord [Carson,
120]. The specific mission
of John was to serve as a “witness to
testify concerning that light.”
That is, John was to set the stage—by means of his preaching
ministry—for the appearance of the One who was “the light.” By stressing
that the Baptist himself “was not the
light,” John the Apostle “may have had in mind a group of people, surviving
at the time when this Gospel was written, who looked back to John [the Baptist]
as their founder and venerated him as the one through whom God had made his
final revelation to mankind, the last and greatest of the prophets” [Bruce,
38].
The Word in the World (1:9-13)
Verse 9
The “light,” which John the Baptist so passionately introduced in his
preaching ministry, was indeed the “true
light.” Jesus, then, is God’s supreme self-disclosure to man. His
appearance in the “world” brought “light to every man.” This means that the light of Jesus Christ
has invaded the “world” in its
rebellion and spiritual darkness. This true light “shines on every man, and
divides the race: those who hate the light respond as the world does (1:10):
they flee lest their deeds should be exposed by this light (3:19-21). But some
receive this revelation (1:12-13), and thereby testify that their deeds have
been done through God (3:21)” [Carson, 124].
Verses 10-11
Here John states that, though the entire cosmos was made “through” Jesus, the eternal Word and Agent of creation, “the world did not recognize him” at the time he entered it in space and time Westcott understands this to mean that the world in general “failed to recognize Him who was doubly shown as its Creator and Preserver” [8]. Verse 11 adds that Christ’s very “own” people, the Jews themselves, “did not receive him” or embrace Him as the Messiah and Lord.
Verses 12-13
However, not everyone
rejected the Word. Many both “received him” and “believed in his name”—statements that are apparently parallel in
meaning. In other words, to “receive”
Him is equivalent to believing in His “name”
for salvation. F. F. Bruce puts it
this way:
To enter God’s family one must receive his Word—in other terms, one must believe in his name. The ‘name’ is much more than the designation by which a person is known; it means the real character or sometimes, as here, the person himself. To receive him who is the Word of God, then, means to place one’s faith in him, to yield one’s allegiance to him and thus, in the most practical manner, to acknowledge his claims [38].
Those who exercise such
faith in the Word are given the “right”
or authority to “become children of God.”
Such persons, then, enjoy the very same privileges known by the covenant nation
of the Old Testament. Yahweh Himself becomes their Father and confirms this by
sending His very Spirit into their hearts, “crying, Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:6). In verse 13, however, we are
told that entrance into the kingdom of God is, indeed, a mighty work of God
Himself. John establishes this point
from a negative perspective. Those who have believed in Christ are “born of
God.” This spiritual birth is radically different than physical birth.
While physical birth has to do with “human decision” and “a husband’s
will,” the new birth of salvation is by grace through faith in Christ. The
point is that membership in the kingdom of God is not a matter of physical or “natural
descent.” It is an act of God. Therefore, it is “spiritually irrelevant to
be descended from Abraham in the natural order if one is not a child of Abraham
in the only sense that matters before God—by reproducing Abraham’s faith” [Bruce,
38-9].
A Witness About the Word (1:14-18)
Having asserted the full
divinity of Christ, the Word of God, John now declares with equal certainty the
reality of His incarnation. Note that
he again employs the term “Word” (logos) for the second Person of the
Trinity. As stated earlier, this
specialized term has significance in that it highlights Jesus as the ultimate
revelation of God. As we have observed,
a “word” is a medium of
manifestation, a means of communication, and a method of revelation. In this regard, Christ has manifested the
invisible God, communicated the love of God, and revealed the character and
nature of God [Pink, 21]. In addition, the use of
this term by the Apostle serves to answer the challenges of three groups of men
who doubted the divinity of Jesus. The
Jews held that only the Law was eternal and was God’s instrument in
creation. The Gnostics maintained that
God would never assume a sinful human body, therefore, denying His deity. Finally, the followers of John the Baptist
had apparently claimed that Jesus was not the light which had come down from
heaven (see John 1:8). Yet, John again boldly
declares that this divine “Word” was
not only God, but was also fully man.
In this verse we observe three truths concerning the God-Man, Jesus
Christ:
·
One: The Word entered human
history-
John writes that He “became flesh.” That is, the eternal logos invaded human history at a specific point in time and
space. Furthermore, He came to a
particular race and nation, having assumed human “flesh” and blood. Note the
scriptural testimony:
Luke 1:31 "And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and
you shall name Him Jesus.”
Luke 2:12 "And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in
cloths, and lying in a manger."
Rom 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God
did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for
sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
Phil 2:8-11 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. {9} Therefore also God
highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
{10} that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW, of those who are in
heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, {11} and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
·
Two: The Word lived among men- John states that the
eternal Word “lived for awhile among us,”
or more literally, tabernacled or pitched His tent with us. Thus, Christ lived as a real man and
experienced all the vagaries of human life.
·
Three: The Word revealed the
character of God- According to the Apostle’s testimony, he and other disciples actually
beheld “his glory,” the very same glory once displayed in the Temple which
indicated God’s presence. This means
that the “One and Only who came from the Father” (a
phrase indicating His eternal Trinitarian Sonship) uniquely revealed to men the
nature of God, especially His “grace and
truth.” Note that this point is
repeated in verse 17, where the “law,”
mediated through “Moses,” is
contrasted with the Gospel, or “grace
and truth,” which are realized “through Jesus Christ.” As Hendriksen comments, there was
nothing wrong with the law,
moral and ceremonial. It had been given
by God through Moses. It was
preparatory in character. It revealed
man’s lost condition and it also foreshadowed his deliverance. But there were two things which the law as
such did not supply: grace so that transgressors could be pardoned and helped
in time of need, and truth, i.e., the reality to which all the types
pointed. Christ by His atoning work
furnished both [89].
While it is
true that “no one has ever seen God,”
Christ has “made him known” or
interpreted Him. Christ’s authority to
be the sole interpreter of God rests upon two profound facts:
·
One: Christ is “God the One and Only”- This special phrase does
not mean that Christ was created by God (this has been addressed above), but
that He has eternally existed as the Son of God, the second Person of the
Trinity. Note:
Acts 13:33 that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised
up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'THOU ART MY SON; TODAY I
HAVE BEGOTTEN THEE.'
Heb 1:5 For to which of the angels did He ever say, "THOU ART MY SON,
TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN THEE"? And again, "I WILL BE A FATHER TO HIM
AND HE SHALL BE A SON TO ME"?
Heb 5:5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest,
but He who said to Him, "THOU ART MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN
THEE";
·
Two: Christ is “at the Father’s side”- That is, He enjoys the
most personal and profound intimacy with the Father, and therefore, knows the
Father as no other. This means, according to Carson, that the incarnate Word
“was simultaneously God and with God” [134]. Through
Him alone, the impenetrable barrier between sinful humanity and God has been
bridged once and for all.
Major
Questions for Reflection, Application, and Discussion
One: How are we to understand
the nature of Christ? Is He half-God,
half-man? Sometimes God, sometimes
man? What difference does it make
anyway?
Two: Why did Christ have to
become a man?
Three: Is it really necessary to assert
that salvation is found only in Christianity?
What about the other religions that seek to find God through different
avenues?